Browsing by Author "Donovan, Kevin"

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    The Biometric Imaginary: Standardization & Objectivity in Post-Apartheid Welfare
    (2013) Donovan, Kevin
    Starting in March 2012, the South African government engaged in a massive effort of citizen registration that continued for more than a year. Nearly 19 million social welfare beneficiaries enrolled in a novel biometric identification scheme that uses fingerprints and voice recognition to authenticate social grant recipients. This paper seeks to understand the meaning of biometric technology in post-apartheid South African welfare through a study of the bureaucratic and policy elite's motivation for this undertaking. It suggests that biometric technology was conceived of and implemented as the most recent in a series of institutional, infrastructural, and policy reforms that seek to deliver welfare in a standardized and objective manner. This technopolitical imaginary has contributed to both the strengths and weaknesses of today's centralized welfare state.
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    Infrastructuring Aid: Materializing Social Protection in Northern Kenya
    (2013) Donovan, Kevin
    In numerous African countries, humanitarian and development organizations - as well as governments - are expanding expenditures on social protection schemes as a means of poverty alleviation. These initiatives, which typically provide small cash grants to poor households, are often considered particularly agreeable for the simplicity of their administration and the feasibility of their implementation. This paper examines the background work required to deploy social protection in one especially remote area: the margins of postcolonial Kenya. Specifically, it documents the often-overlooked social and technical construction of the infrastructure necessary so that cash transfers may function with the ease and simplicity for which they are commended. Attention to the practice of 'infrastructuring' offers insights into the tensions and politics of what is rapidly becoming a key form of transnational governance in the global south, especially the way in which market-based means and humanitarian ethics overlap.
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    Mobile Money for Financial Inclusion
    (World Bank, 2012) Donovan, Kevin
    Mobile financial services are among the most promising mobile applications in the developing world. Mobile money could become a general platform that transforms entire economies, as it is adopted across commerce, health care, agriculture, and other sectors. To date, at least 110 money mobile systems have been deployed, with more than 40 million users. The most well-known system, M-PESA, started in Kenya and is now operational in six countries; it has 20 million users who transferred $500 million a month during 2011.1 While the benefits of mobile money payment systems are clear, observers remain divided over whether mobile money systems are truly fulfilling their growth potential. This chapter evaluates the benefits and potential impact of mobile money, especially for promoting financial inclusion in the developing world, before providing an overview of the key factors driving the growth of mobile money services. It also considers some of the barriers and obstacles hindering their deployment. Finally, it identifies emerging issues that the industry will face over the coming years.
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    Mobile Money more Freedom? The Impact of M-PESA's Network Power on Development as Freedom
    (University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, 2012) Donovan, Kevin
    The role of ICTs in development is contested between those who believe they will facilitate human development and those who believe they are, at most, impotent, and at worst, counterproductive. This article uses an examination of M-PESA, a large-scale mobile financial service in Kenya, to argue that the impact of ICTs on development as freedom differs with both the specific conceptualization of freedom used, and the institutional arrangement of the technology in question. The article’s novel conceptual model links the adoption of mobile money to its impact, suggesting that the dominant individualistic and instrumental approaches to ICT4D overlook the ways in which power and domination function alongside freedom when these factors are considered relationally and substantively. I demonstrate that the internal plurality of the concept of freedom leads to both new forms of empowerment, but also to limitations on choice and new forms of dominance. In closing, I suggest institutional and technological arrangements that are most likely to maximize the development potential of mobile money.